


Why'd It Have to Be Me?

by worldengine



Series: Fourteen Days [1]
Category: Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, F/M, Spoilers, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldengine/pseuds/worldengine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**SPOILERS** for the end of the film – the final moment between Clark and Zod is mentioned and Lois finds herself comforting a distraught Superman.</p><p>**Updated: 7/29/14. Added a few hundred words, fixed some errors. Not much difference, but still wanted to let everyone know!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why'd It Have to Be Me?

I'm on my knees, down. There's a fire burning inside of my lungs and my arms...they're heavier than ever. I've fallen. I understand why this is so, but when exactly it happened, is a thing that will remain an utter mystery.

Zod lays only a few feet from where I am. I long to close his eyes but find myself unable to move, not an inch, not even if there was another battle to be fought right then. Lois appears suddenly, her face looking on, features emanating compassion.

I am undeserving of her sympathies. Of anyone's, of that there is little question. It's hard to swallow, but I doubt that has much to do with the smoke-laden air. I've kil--

I'm exhausted for the first time in my life; it feels as though a stranger has inhabited the man I believed I once was...as if all of my power had gone upon the twist and snapping of the Generals neck. The sound- _that sound_ -resonates deep into the depths of me, its terminal echoes carving chasms through my bones. I feel hollowed out and empty because of it. Because of what I've done.

How did it get this point?

I feel Lois reach for me and I respond by giving in to gravity once more. I move close and cling to her as though she is the final link to humanity that I've left for myself. And maybe that's true. It sure feels like it's true.

My head hangs beside her slender frame; with one of my arms wrapped around her body so that Zod's is out of view, I am desperate for her to stay as she is. I cannot gaze at his unmoving form a single second longer. His body–Zod's waste–it's the product of my ultimatum.

I had a choice and I chose. I chose the humans, the people who raised and loved me, the ones who have kept me all these years. Yet I took a precious thing that wasn't mine to take. Never, never, never is that right. I know this, I've known this my entire life. There is a right and there is a wrong, and I still...

But Zod would have killed them all, would have forced my hand– _did_ force my hand. I begged him to stop, I screamed for him to, and yet.

"Clark? Let's go home."

I hear Lois' voice and the sound coming from her is sincere and committed. She trusts me, an alien murderer. An alien, a murderer. 

I feel her fingers slip beneath my arms, and slowly they try to lift me. She won't be able to, not unless I willingly stand in tandem with her efforts. I do. I rise. And I find myself above her again, looking down. I--I can't find the words to tell her how I wish–"It's all going to be okay, Clark. You had to. Clark? You **had** to."

Her hand reaches my face and I sense a warmth as her touch brushes away tears I hadn't realized were there. The thought strikes me that I don't cry that often and here I am, doing just that.

My chest rises and falls faster than the norm; I'm expanding to make room for the guilt I feel, but my breath stubbornly refuses to catch. I do not deserve peace or solace in this moment, nor the feel of Lois' sincerity and comfort, not even an ease of breath.

I'm walking now, headed towards the steps from which Lois must have come to me from. She's guiding me, since I have little to no concern as to where I end up and that's something she must have recognized early on. Crowds have long since formed, but silence fills the heavy, acrid air. The faces around us are ashen but...joyous? They're happy with what I've done?

Incomprehensible.

And then I remember, these Metropolitans believe me to be hero and hero only. They know not of Clark Kent and his Kansas farm life. They don't know of a great man, my father, who gave everything for the son that was bound to hold the world atop his shoulders one day. Today was that day, and I nearly failed. I may not have let Earth surrender to destruction and chaos, but I know I failed elsewhere. Morally, I've done the worst thing. 

Oh God, I've failed him though, haven't I? If only Jonathan Kent could see me now. I swallow down the quarter-sized lump that's formed at the base of my throat and breathe out nothing but anguish. I can't imagine the pain this would have caused him... Surely it wou--

Lois tugs on my elbow. I've stopped moving? Her eyebrows raise and her head tilts forward, giving me purchase to keep going. She sees the war within my eyes, inside of my heart, and knows somehow, _somehow_ , the pain my actions have inflicted.

I nod in compliance and blink steadily while we walk past a group of men who are clapping their hands. They're exuberant to be alive, unscathed and...seemingly impressed by what's happened inside of their train station. Everyone appreciates death in their own way, I guess. But I wouldn't clap. I won't.

Lois takes us to the edge of the business square and past the manicured trees, where only but a few still stand. People have begun to thin out around us, gratefully lending a wide birth given the recent circumstances. I see she finally has enough space to gather her own thoughts, which is something Lois must have needed; after a minute or so, the muscles of her face change, brighten, and I see a decision has been made. "Take me home, Clark. And ...stay with me?"

The words come as a question but I know it's a statement...most likely she doesn't trust me to be alone with myself. I make a sound to protest–I should return to Smallville and check on my mother–but Lane's eyes hold me there and I cave in. My head gives the answer, again, by falling forward. I look up quickly to find two arms reaching to circle around my neck; her arms lock themselves there and I realize it's an assumed position: I'm to fly her and I home, wherever that may be. 

I...like this. I lift her by the back of her knees and pull her close, inhaling the scents of battle and worry that are permanently embedded into her clothing now. But not embedded permanently into her. 

I take one final glance behind us at the gaping hole that now adorns the front of Metropolis' Grand Central. An involuntary shake rolls through me. This happened, all of it _really_ happened.

A question plagues me then: should I retrieve Zod's body? I think to send it skyward, sailing into the infinite where he might rest among an ocean of stars. I turn back to catch Lois' gaze and realize that that time has come and gone. Surely by now the good soldiers have claimed him, for one purpose or another, all of which I'd rather not contemplate too deeply. We both recognize why this is most likely the case, and so I lower slightly, and set a course for ...home, resigned.

"1939 West 6th," Lois whispers.

We arrive in one minute: thirty-three seconds and her building has, miraculously, remained undamaged by the events from earlier. I set her down on the small outside ledge first, allowing her time to work at opening a locked window. She can't, so I do and then just like that, we're inside. It's a safe place, where no one is clapping or smiling at me. 

I stand immobile by gray-colored curtains and watch quietly as she pulls off the dirtied boots from her feet. Her face and hair are filthy, with scratches and bruises and tears littered about her person. But she's beautiful and I long to fall into her, to forget the horror of today and feel...comforted, despite being undeserving. Yet I don't know her intentions of having me here quite yet, and so I remain firmly rooted by the edge of her apartment.

"Clark, please...follow me?"

She says this and walks down a narrow hallway, not waiting on a response. The hardwood floors are clean and polished with a rich, cherry-red color. There's a table set against a gray wall with several picture frames scattered about. I glance down at a graduation photograph of Lois from Raleigh College; her frozen smile larger than anything I've glimpsed on her since that first meeting in the Arctic. I make a mental note to work on making that happen more often.

Of all the things to think of in times like these.

I'm aware that I made it to just inside the doorway of her bedroom, and she's there, staring at me and waiting on ...something. She gasps a deep breath before, "can I remove your cape?" Her words are soft but considerate–she's not sure of how certain she wants to be with me. I love her unbidden confidence. Lois would have asked even if she'd known the answer would be no, which of course, it wasn't. 

"Mmhm," I mumble, and then she's right there, behind me. Her fingers find the suit's zipper and they draw it down six or so inches until the red fabric is viewable beneath the foreign blue material. She unclasps the hooks that keep the thing from billowing away and pulls the right side through first. Repeating this action, the left side is done just as smoothly. Having never personally experienced this before, I'm surprised at her sense of ease and surety with me. I'm lured in by her, as though we've lived a thousand of these moments before. And yet.

Suddenly, I feel Lois' lips against my skin, in the spot left exposed by the opened zipper. She's kissed me. My eyes close in on themselves as the sensations overwhelm. It feels as though fading embers have been fanned back to life, a fire bright and burning inside and filling the hollowed parts of my soul. 

How can this woman show such affection after what I've done? How can I begin to accept her tenderness and--"Lay with me?"

Another not-so-request statement of fact. I let go of all previous thought and follow where her hand leads. To the bed. A queen-sized refuge for just her and I. 

She makes no movement to pull the pillows out from underneath the comforter nor to remove any other adornments. Lois simply eases herself down onto the center of the mattress and, hand still holding mine, pulls me to her. I'm on my side, next to her, and gently, she moves my head down onto her belly.

In the past I've heard her heart from miles away but never as I'm hearing it now. It's steady and beating and strong, and the sound brings new meaning to what's happened. Lois is alive, they're all _mostly_ alive. I've saved them, just as Jor-El said I could.

But at what cost? A life. The last man from a home I've never known.

"It's okay, Clark. All of this is going to be okay." Lois' words of reassurance come and they leave me believing in the possibility of hope again. I shut my eyes as the grip I have gets just a little tighter; I'd never hurt her, never, so my hands hold onto the dusty flight suit she's still wearing. I feel fingers intertwined with my hair and know she's trying her best to soothe me.

I'm...shaking? I am, my body shakes against hers. 

I hear my own breath as it releases in gasps and realize that I've been crying since I've laid my head down onto her. "Oh God," I choke out loud, as a disturbed snapping sound echoes within my wracked mind and memories. Lois clings to me harder, giving of herself, wholly and completely. She wants to go with me through the gates of this hell and knows the only one keeping her at a safe distance...is me.

No more. I won't be able to beat this thing alone. 

I try hard to stifle the choking guilt and Lois hears this. "No, Clark, no. Let it out," she orders. And I do. I cry and scream into her and wish and pray and hope that tomorrow, when we wake, it will have all been a dream. That, somehow, I'll be given the power to turn back time. To salvage a man who appeared to be beyond salvation.

I know that's wishful thinking though.

I hear Lois' voice utter "shh" and "it's okay," and I want to believe her, to believe fully in what she's hoping for. Maybe one day I will, but not this day. Not this night. I can't. I can only give in to the grief and mourn for a man who doesn't deserve it.

"Why...why'd it have to be me, Lois?" My ears attune themselves to the words I've said but my brain is in complete disconnect. She doesn't answer, only continues to touch and hold me. She will keep the waves off shore for the time being, she will keep me from crashing and breaking apart.

The last thing I remember before slipping into a dreamless void was Zod's final word, "never." I know it then.

He'd never have stopped.


End file.
